Great Career Success Debate: 5 good college habits that can hurt your career

Career expert Dr. Susan Davis-Ali, founder of Leadhership1, author and Carlson School of Management faculty, squares off with Patrick O’Brien, author of Making College Count, entrepreneur and professor, on how to achieve success after college.

Are the work habits I’m developing in college going to help me achieve success in my first professional job after graduation?

Susan’s take: In two words — maybe not.

Habits that contribute to college success are not necessarily the habits that contribute to success on the job. In fact, the very habits that are helping you do well in your classes now are the exact habits that could hurt your future career success.

Below are 5 successful college habits that do not translate well into a professional work setting:

Habit #1: Showing off what you know all the time

In most college classes the goal is to impress the professor with your knowledge. You raise your hand to ask questions, raise your hand to answer questions and endlessly debate points of interest to you. All of this lands you in favor with your professor — which is a good thing.

However, after college these same behaviors will land you in the dog house with your co-workers. Annoying your fellow classmates comes with very few drawbacks, but annoying your co-workers comes with a price. Getting along with your colleagues is key to success in the workplace.

Being seen as the “know it all” is not a way to win favor with your coworkers.

Practice sharing the spotlight with your fellow classmates and save some of what you want to say in class for your term paper — or for the professor’s office hours.

Habit #2: Being the master of your schedule

In college, you are the master of your schedule. You can choose to skip a class to catch up on work from another class, you can pull an all-nighter to finish a project and you can turn down all social invitations to study for a big test (none of these strategies are recommended).

In college, what you do with your time is pretty much up to you. Not so in the workplace.

Your days will be largely scheduled with mandatory meetings. You will be given work that your boss expects you to finish on time. Even if “on time” seems unreasonable to you. In the workplace, work must be delivered on time. There is not a 10% deduction from your grade every day that work is handed in late.

Start now learning to manage your time in a way that forces you to deliver everything on time, without pulling all-nighters.

Habit #3: Asking for more interesting work

In college, professors reward students who want to learn more than is required for the class. Working ahead and/or asking for more challenging assignments is seen as a good thing. Not always so in the workplace.

In some organizations there is a prescribed formula for what assignments are given to a person at entry levels. You may be expected to start with assignments that feel beneath your ability level or outside your area of interest.

If you ask for more interesting assignments right away, you’ll be seen as someone who feels above doing the work they’ve been assigned. Earn your boss’s favor as a good, hard worker first before you broach the subject of more challenging assignments.

Susan’s bottom line: Doing well in college is the foundation for landing a god job. Therefore, it seems completely counterintuitive then that the habits that create success in college can produce the opposite effect in a work setting.

Knowledge is power, and by knowing that these habits do not transfer well into a work setting will allow you to use them effectively now and leave them behind once you graduate.

Pat’s Take: College should be the training ground for your career success. It’s a time to stretch yourself, to work though areas in need of professional development, to fail, and to garner input on that failure to help you improve in areas of critical importance.

To that end, let me add a couple of items to Susan’s list:

Habit #4: Always leveraging your strengths.

In general, I’m a big fan drawing on your strengths — particularly in a team setting. If you’re not a great presenter but are strong analytically, it is logical (and often appropriate) to take on an analytical role in a team project.

However, at some point, you’ll want (and need) to become a serviceable public speaker. To do so, you’ll need to really work at it. You’ll need to attack your weakness by spending time on it — and ultimately getting up and speaking.

So, don’t always follow your strength. Look to develop a comprehensive set of career skills in this low-risk environment.

Habit #5: Asking for extra credit to make up for a subpar performance

There’s no “extra credit” in the “real world.” You’ve got to perform. It’s that simple.

It is great that you may have the opportunity to do so in college and that you take advantage of it — or even proactively pursue it — but the same dynamic does not exist after college.

You need to stay out in front on things, prepare well and get things right the first time. College is a great place to learn how to do that, which might just eliminate the need for “extra credit” in the real world.

Pat’s Bottom Line: The goal in college is not to learn habits that will help you be a “star” in college. The goal is to learn how to do things “right” and build a track record that will allow you to articulate and validate those skills on interview day — and in your first job.

Are you transitioning from college to career or working in your first job after graduation? If so, we’d love to answer any question you may have related to career success. Send your first name, school, and/or employer to AskPatandSusan@gmail.com and we’ll try to address your question in a future article.